Week 1 reflection

 Why is social innovation more prevalent today?

Social innovation is the process of identifying a problem and doing something positive, systemic, and sustainable about it. It is the creation of a novel solution to a social problem that is more effective, efficient, sustainable, or just than existing solutions. The value created by the social innovation supports society as a whole, particularly the disenfranchised and disadvantaged, rather than an individual. It is driven by changemakers, the catalysts for social innovation, are passionate, creative, resourceful people who possess a wide varieties of traits such as leadership, problem solving, empathy, self-awareness, and perseverance. They may be social entrepreneurs, people who create and maintain a social value, creating fundamental changes in the way things are done in society.

In the video "Making a change through Social Entrepreneurship" the text at one point reads, "What if you could learn from people across the globe... how to turn passion into profit?" As that came across my screen I felt a reaction of disgust. It conjured up an image of money hungry entrepreneurs profiteering from the misfortune of others; for example, predatory lending to impoverished farmers. In "Rediscovering Social Innovation" the authors call microfinancing, (the lending of small sums and other financial services to poor people who lack access to conventional financial systems), "the quintessential social innovation." (Phillis et al, 2008). A quick google search, however, provides over 2900 scholarly articles about predatory lending and microfinancing, so I remain skeptical of that particular example. However in "The Meaning of Social Entrepreneurship", the author notes that "Not every social sector leader is well suited to being entrepreneurial", and that " We need social entrepreneurs to help us find new avenues toward social improvement as we enter the next century." (Dees, 2001)

And what can we expect in the next century? In the age of social media, world news, international travel, and the world wide web, societal problems, across the world, are getting more exposure than ever before. With problems being exposed on the widespread scale that they are, it stands to reason that there the people, public and private organizations, for profit and non-profit entities, who want to contribute to changing and improving those problems are becoming more widespread as well. Corporations, governments and non-profits, and individual change makers are seeing that in order to create the scope of change necessary to affect societies, they must work together, combining their various strengths and resources, to collaboratively create change.